just go ahead and do it and a gdp report like today shows the private economy can grow in that kind of environment, just like all over the world. lower spending, good for the economy. >> you're right. bob, you recently wrote a piece suggesting allowing rates to rise without tightening monetary policy. how does that work? >> well, i'm not sure it would work. at the december minutes of the last fomc meeting or the next to the last one now, seemed to treat interest rate policy and quantitative easing separately, and the implication was we'd have lower interest rates for a lot longer than we would have continued quantitative easing. i just think the economy would be healthier if they would do the reverse of that and allow interest rates to tick up a little bit, allocate capital a little more effectively, but using quantitative easing, not let the money supply shrink. keep it growing slowly. >> do you think we are going to see a spike in rates? markets will push rates higher at some point? when would you expect rates to start moving up, bob? >> oh, well, when the economy starts showing a lot more healt